UPDATE: The city’s Lena Stevens provides us with a bit more info on the new bins, their inspiration and when should should expect to see more around town…
We will be getting 8 more bins for the downtown area, and 10 for the Beacon Municipal Center. We expect delivery of the rest of the bins sometime next week. This is a small pilot to see if we can get more folks to properly recycle by making the bins easily accessible and clearly marked. We got the idea from Asheville. They just switched out all of their cans to this style.
We will be testing them for durability too. The good thing about the old style bins is that you can hit them with a truck and there won’t be a scratch on it. If these new bins work out for us, we would likely phase them in over time, not in one big order.
You may have noticed these new trash bins on Decatur Square during the Decatur Book Festival.
Over the years, some residents have expressed a desire for new bins that more clearly identify trash vs. recycling. (Looking at you, altmod). Previously, both were large, black metal bins. It looks like the city has responded with a new black can for garbage and a teal one for recycling. They’ve also taken it a step further, now identifying the garbage can as a “landfill” can.
So, what does everything think?
Photo courtesy of Gwyneth
The recycling can color looks more like turquoise or cyan to me rather than teal. But I love it whatever it is. it would have gone nice with the old Decatur Diner motif.
It’s art.
Fantastic. On par with our awesome bike racks!
Good move ! I’ve been thinking for a long time that the old ones were ineffective for recycling due to the inability to recognize the difference.
The contrasting bins are a great idea..but Teal? Or turquoise or whatever. Why do we have to have teal as our downtown color theme? Who decided to do that? If teal ever was in it was in the ’80’s. We need a more timeless color scheme. I was horrified when I saw the new square plaza decorative light columns were backlit teal, matching the teal gazebo and teal city hall window trim. Let’s stop digging ourselves deeper into this Teal Trench of color deafness! Just say no to teal or any of it’s relatives in public spaces. This is not Miami!
Oh, please – does the color really matter, if by being a bit unusual it gets people to recycle? Of all the trivial matters to complain about. . .
+1
Yes as a designer, I can say with authority, color matters. I know it is easy to dismiss as trivial. I was trying to start a discussion about bringing us into the 21st century of color, as our lovely city deserves…
Btw color will only go so far…folks need to care enough to place the items in the correct bin. Time will tell if this is effective. Our experience has, “bin” that when one is full the other is utilized.
I like teal. Please stop trying to oppress my teal.
Ok, I will leave your teal alone…for now. in good color conscience though, I must officially log my opposition.
Teal it like it is. Your only tealing the truth….. Etc
Don’t teal on me…
+1
+1
I can certainly tell the difference now! Assuming it is single stream like our bins, too! That is great news.
Awesome
It has been a long time coming. The change was much needed. In my opinion the original design failure was that the recycle bin looked just like the rubbish bin. So the contrasting color scheme was a must. They should have been painted a contrasting color from the outset. As far as the actual color that the recycle bins should/need to be….I’m neutral. I would have thought that one of the colors from our COD town logo would have been the choice.
I am just fine with the turquoise aka teal but the most logical color would be green, right? Like our recycling bins? I’m pretty sure that green is a big color fashion-wise this year, as in “green is the new black”.
Well folks, just to weigh in on the color discussion . . . our usual choice of color is dark green or black to stay neutral. However, as has been pointed out, we found that if the color was too close to the standard trash can color, it wasn’t used for recycling. We also had to work within the color palette available from the manufacturer. We were going for contrast.
I like the Evereman vibe.
I’m hoping they are not too expensive; I would like to see many, many more. I find that placing recycling bins right next to trash cans is the best way to recycle. Hope there’s enough to match every trash can in the city.